or pleasant, but much older, man. The tortillas are warm, and the roasted chicken is as good as I have tasted in the country, far better than most I have tried to eat. Milk is wanting; they have not any. I protest and persevere until he brings me two tumblers of delicious milk, for which he wants a real extra, but is content with his half-dollar at the last. I asked her if he was her father. "No," she replied, laughing; "my husband. He is mas grande" (much older). They had twelve children. He said he went to church every Sunday with his wife and children to Mattejuala, twenty miles off, which I doubt. If any body wants good milk and good roast chicken at a rancho, let them call on Señor and Señora Tebucio, at La Punta.
The hills fall back from this point (probably called La Punta from that circumstance), and we descend gradually into a handsome plain, almost a circle, from six to ten miles wide. We skirt its eastern side, leaving all the plain to the vast fields of the hacienda of Precita. The hills close it in on every side, except a tiny opening on the north-east. This, as we come near, widens into a pass, called El Puerto del Terquaro (the Pass or Gate of Terquaro). This lets us down gradually, as by terraces and slopes, into the handsome plain of Mattejuala. In this plain the palma, or Spanish bayonet, as they call it in Colorado, assumes pre-eminence over all rivals, both for number and size. It had been coming into note more and more the last score of miles. Here it opens into forests, miles square. It assumes almost the majesty of oaks, and extends an ocean of verdure, refreshing to the eye, though not of especial value to any other sense. A score of miles along its quaint hedge-rows and deep green effects brings us to Mattejuala, the largest town between San Luis Potosi and Saltillo. Here our cigaretting girls disembark, and hie round a corner to the broad-leaved gateway of a cool one-story house, where they probably still keep up their chattering and smoking. The town is large and lazy, not having life enough hardly on that lazy day to harness our mules, or even to see it done. They, however, have enough to fly away, and dive into the outer country of palms and mesquite like a
